U.S. backs new genetic research on infectious diseases

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. National Institutes of
Health has awarded $25 million to the J. Craig Venter Institute
to back an initiative to study infectious diseases like malaria
and influenza at the genetic level to help find better
treatments and preventive measures.

The institute, with offices in Maryland and California, will
use the five-year grant from NIH to establish the Genome Center
for Infectious Diseases to study the genetic secrets of a wide
range of bacteria, viruses and parasites, officials said on
Thursday.

The effort will include genetic sequencing of a number of
pathogens and research on genetic mechanisms behind the
emergence of antibiotic resistance, they said.

"It's a pretty big program," said Karen Nelson, president of
the non-profit institute, in a telephone interview.

Infectious diseases are among the leading causes of death
worldwide. Venter, the former NIH researcher who founded the
institute, said in a statement that the new work will be aimed
at "enabling a more in-depth understanding of pathogen biology
and potentially aiding in better treatments and preventative
measures against infectious disease."

The parasite research will focus on malaria, the
mosquito-borne disease that every year kills more than 620,000
people - mostly African children, and also toxoplasmosis, which
U.S. health officials call a leading cause of death attributed
to foodborne illness in the United States, officials said.

"Malaria is a particularly high focus for the (NIH's)
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The focus
there is really on exploring approaches to come up with malaria
vaccines, which are looking more and more like they're going to
potentially be a reality for managing malaria," Venter Institute
researcher William Nierman added.